Horses Are Hard, Don’t Give Up: Surviving The Unthinkable
Editor’s Note: This story originally published in the Heels Down Spark newsletter in May 2021, as part of a series exploring tales from real riders about how they’ve overcome injuries and setbacks, and how they found the motivation to keep going. Sign up now for the Spark to read more stories like this first, delivered to your inbox.
By the time Kristi Mclay had found the horse of her dreams – she’d already experienced some serious hardship.
Kristi, 35, grew up in Alberta and was no stranger to legendary horse venues like Spruce Meadows and the Calgary Stampede. That’s where she caught the horse bug, after all. “Once you watch a horse jump, how do you not want to jump?,” she recalled. Her first horse was a Standardbred mare she picked out as a foal. They learned the ropes together over the years, but on the day before Kristi’s 20th birthday, they took a stumble during a hack in the field and both went down. Kristi heard a snapping sound in her back. But she got up, walked her horse back and drove herself to the hospital. That’s where she found out she’d broken her back.
“I was very close to being paralzyed. I did luck out, truly,” Kristi explained, even though the recovery would lead to weeks in a wheelchair and some nerve damage. Despite the injury, and some lingering fear that came with it, Kristi continued to ride after she recovered. She became mesmerized by the Friesian breed, and when the opportunity arose for her to own one of her own, she jumped at it.
“The power in their movement is unbelievable,” she said. After her first few rides on a Friesian, she knew “there was no going back at that point.”
Wiesje (pronounced “Vee-She”) turned out to be the horse of her dreams. In 2015, Kristi decided to breed her lovely mare. After a difficult and long labor to birth a healthy filly, it became clear that something was wrong.
Wiesje seemed lethargic at first. “She just didn’t bounce back to her usual sassy self,” Kirsti described. “She wouldn’t eat or drink, and appeared her whole body was sore. It was like someone sucked the life out of my horse.”
Blood tests and vet examinations couldn’t determine a cause for sudden downturn, so Kristi loaded Wiesje into the trailer and headed to an equine hospital. Wiesje’s case would stump the specialists there, too. They would perform every diagnostic test they could think of, “some I had never even heard of before,” Kristi said. They tried different antibiotics. But Wiesje just wasn’t getting better. It got to the point where Kristi had to make a tough decision.
She went out to see her mare in the hospital. Immediately, Wiesje recognized the sound of Kristi’s voice and perked up. Next, she stood up, which surprised everyone in the room. “I did manage to get her to eat and drink that day,” Kristi recalled. So the vets decided to send the mare home with her and hope for the best.
“They told me she needed me,” she said. “At that point I had put so much into trying to save her, I thought let’s bring her home and I might as well try.”
Vets were never able to diagnose what was wrong with Wiesje, but she started getting stronger little by little at home under Kristi’s care. Every day Kristi would report back to the vets with Wiesje’s vitals and progress. Whatever infection she’d caught had caused laminitis and some rotation in her front hooves. Kristi had no expectation to ride her mare again. But after months of care, easing off medications and the help of a really good barefoot trimmer, Wiesje made a full recovery.
Kristi now lives in Florida with her family and her horses, including Wiesje and her filly.
Despite the hard days, Kristi says “I’m not me without horses.”
“Horses were always my escape. They’ve been my form of therapy for as long as I can remember. Even when I was nursing Wiesje back to heath, I had a purpose to get up every day.”
Kristi and Wiesje are headed to their first competition soon, and have plans to three-day event.
“I’ve had crap thrown at me, and I always come back to the horses. It’s what makes me feel whole and healthy.”